


The Perils of Being the Favourite

by JacquelineHyde



Category: Fire Emblem Heroes
Genre: Also an excuse to write Sharena and Alfonse interacting for a zillionty pages, Basically just a bunch of mental images that made me happy-screech, Fluff and silliness, Gen, Have you ever written fanservice to yourself?, Puppies, That is essentially what this story is, blanket burritos
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-15
Updated: 2018-02-15
Packaged: 2019-03-18 14:59:36
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,286
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13684035
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/JacquelineHyde/pseuds/JacquelineHyde
Summary: In which Alfonse is an unwilling blanket burrito, Sharena is surrounded by crazy people, and the summoner needs to learn to understand boundaries and common sense.





	The Perils of Being the Favourite

**Author's Note:**

> Okay, so this story was written entirely because when I have a favourite fictional character, I loudly and repeatedly express the desire to “wrap [them] in blankets and feed [them] soup,” and the setup of this game, with the self-insert summoner thing, kind of lends itself to seeing just what that would look like. As it turns out, creepy af! Sorry, Alfonse.
> 
> Summoner is named Yezo, because I have a long tradition of writing absolutely ridiculous pseudo-self-insert characters by that name.

For as long as Sharena can remember, her older brother has also been her closest friend.

It's such an obvious statement that it seems almost silly to say, when they were one another's first and most frequent playmates as children, raised to understand the paramount importance of family and to work as a cohesive unit in preparation of the day that the safety and prosperity of Askr will be left to them.

But she doesn't like to just assume that the people she loves know what they mean to her, especially when they're _ridiculous_ like Alfonse, who honestly seems to believe that every time he makes a mistake, fails to live up some silly idea of what he should be, he'll have to earn her friendship all over again.

So she reassures him when he needs it, and he reassures her when she needs it (because hey, she's only human, and sometimes it hurts to think that her own brother doesn't trust her to acknowledge the same thing about him), and in between those times they complement one another's strengths, strengthen one another's weaknesses, and deeply value one another's company.

Yes, she loves her brother dearly, would do anything to keep him safe and happy, and knows beyond all doubt that he would do the same for her.

And so, when confronted with the bizarre sight of her beloved sibling shuffling awkwardly through the castle halls, wrapped in numerous heavy blankets, on the hottest evening of an unusually hot summer, there really is only one appropriate reaction.

“Alfonse, no! Don't you _dare_ come any closer!”

The pile of blankets immediately stops short, and shuffles back a few paces.

“Why?” it demands in a heavily muffled version of Alfonse's voice. “Sharena, what's wrong? Are you hurt?”

“I'm fine, I'm fine, everything's fine,” she assures him quickly, waving off his barrage of alarmed questions. “Just...stay there! I just got over the cold that's been bouncing around all spring, and if you get me sick again, I swear I'll wait until you get better and then sneak into your room and breathe on you while you sleep!”

The top of the pile bobs a few times, as though nodding thoughtfully, before Alfonse impatiently shoves the blankets away from his face.

“Okay, yes, that's fair. But Sharena, I'm not sick.”

“So, what is this, then? A new fashion trend?”

He laughs, wiping a drop of sweat from his eyes.“

“Right now, it seems like the best way to ensure heat stroke.”

“I think there's probably a really easy fix for that,” she points out cheerfully, grabbing a handful of wool and yanking in demonstration.

He leaps back, tripping over the bundle in an attempt to clutch it protectively.

“What are you doing? Are you _crazy_?!”

Rather bewildered by a great many things about this question, Sharena looks from the aggressively shining sun through a high narrow window, to the soaring mercury in a nearby thermometer, to her brother's miserably flushed face and the dark hair sticking to his forehead, to the mass of heavy wool, and back again.

“Um...no?” she finally manages, utterly unheeded as Alfonse begins to pace, continuing with a definite edge of panic in his voice.

“I can't take them off! I would love to, believe me, but if I do, she'll _know_! And then she'll hunt me down and wrap me in even _mor_ e blankets, and this time she'll use staples! I don't even know what staples are, but they don't sound good!”

On his next pass, Sharena grabs him swiftly by the arm.

“ _Who_ will know? Alfonse, who is _she_?”

Releasing a heavy sigh, he slumps back against the wall, as though all at once far too weary to continue with this hopeless business of existing.

“Yezo,” he mutters.

Sharena grimaces sympathetically. It might be funny, if it wasn't making him so obviously uncomfortable.

Since the strange young woman appeared in Askr, summoned by the legendary weapon that she now wields, she's taken a rather alarming shine to its prince. Utterly charmed by nearly everything he says or does, she has absolutely no problem making it blatantly obvious to anyone who happens to be nearby. Over the past months, her brother has spent a lot of time gritting his teeth through bear-hugs, running tackle hugs, and that strange thing Yezo does where she pokes the end of his nose and says _boop_.

And then there are the pet names. The summoner has an endless supply, and most of them are things that Sharena thinks would be more suited to a baby animal than to a grown man. First, he was her _adorable baby boy_ , and then her _small precious bundle of cuteness_ , and then her _darling androgynous cuddlebug_ , dropping each name after a few days and immediately coming up with something even stranger. Recently – and bafflingly – she's taken to calling him her _sweet fluffy blueberry cupcake_. Sharena doesn't even want to _guess_ what inspired this pet name, and may never entirely forgive Anna for her suggestion that it has to do with a deep desire on the summoner's part to lick frosting off of the cupcake in question.

(Not, of course, that she has anything at all against her brother finding that special someone and playing all the strange frosting-related games they can dream up together, but Sharena does not want to know about it, thank-you very much.)

“So, when she said that she wants to wrap you in blankets and feed you soup...”

“She was completely serious,” Alfonse finishes flatly.

Sharena nods thoughtfully, then gestures to the sealed tumbler dangling from his hand.

“And that...”

“...is the soup.” he confirms. “It's good soup, but after the third bowl, I couldn't take it any more, so Yezo put the rest in here to keep it warm until I need it. Which means that I may be carrying it around for years.”

She pats his blankets sympathetically, and shakes her head in bewilderment.

“But why soup?”

“I'm not sure,” he admits, “but she said that whenever she's feeling sad, or lonely, or worried, or she's under a lot of stress at work, or her family is coming to visit wearing their judgey pants, she likes to have a great big bowl of steaming hot soup, so maybe they don't have alcohol in her world. Although, that still doesn't explain why I'm her prime recipient for this brand of comfort.”

“Really?” She eyes him with disbelief. “Brother, worry and stress have been your constant companions for as long as I can remember! Even before we were at war, you still always managed to find something to fret over.”

He groans in dismay, his head droppng forward into the wall with a dull thunk.

“It's that obvious?” he mumbles into the stone.

“Only to me,” she assures him with a soothing pat.

“And to Yezo, apparently,” he sighs.

“Yeah, but she says that's just because she's a big ol' ball of anxiety and catastrophic thinking too, and they can smell their own. Anyway, I think it has a lot more to do with...a few days ago.” She hesitates, aware that she's venturing into Things We Aren't Talking About Yet territory right now, and she doesn't want to send him skittering into the woods like a spooked deer by bringing it up. “She said that once we got home, it seemed to hit you all at once what could have happened if she hadn't seen enough soapy operas to spot a plot twist from a mile away and guess that Prince Bruno was Zach in a mask, and you couldn't stop shaking.”

“And vomiting, followed shortly by dry-heaving,” he adds wearily. “It wasn't pretty, is what I'm saying. Although, I did nearly murder one of our best friends without knowing it, so I don't think it was an overreaction.”

Immediately, she pulls him into a fierce hug, ignoring his startled yelp, and noting silently that all these blankets actually make him a pretty effective teddy bear.

“Oh, Al, I know. But you didn't, and Zach is safe...ish for now, and we're going to find a way to help him, and—oh, I get it now! That must be the face!”

“The face?” he echoes, inching carefully away.

“The one that made Yezo want to wrap you in blankets and feed you soup.”

“Thanks a lot, face,” he mutters sourly. “Still, I guess that explains why she spent the day after we got back loudly reassuring me that my _special gentleman friend_ was going to be just fine, and I shouldn't dwell too much on accidentally trying to kill him, because she loves her husband like burning and she still wants to kill him from time to time, and she thinks it's just sort of a _couples thing_.”

“...Wow,” Sharena manages, at a loss for anything else to say.

Her brother rubs his eyes, cheeks faintly red.

“Obviously, she misread the situation a little bit. And by _a little bit_ , I mean _entirely_. And by _misread_ , I mean _disregarded, in favour of inventing her own_.”

She hesitates, weighing the pros and cons of gently breaking it to Alfonse that Yezo is far from the first person to read something other than simple friendship into his interactions with their absent friend. And for Yezo to have managed that conclusion even without seeing first hand the looks of starry-eyed adoration that she often caught her brother casting at Zacharias, or the tiny, embarrassed, pleased smiles he would send in return...well, either Yezo is a lot smarter than she comes across most of the time, or it was one heck of a lucky guess.

“Um, sure,” she finally says, opting against opening the door on that conversation just yet. “But seriously, there's no point in dying of heat stroke just to humour her. Go talk to her, and explain that giant piles of blankets don't make for good summerwear!”

“I keep meaning to, but then I just think about all the ways it could end very, very badly.”

“What? How?!”

“That's just it!” he wails. “I don't know! With Yezo, it could be anything!”

“Okay, that doesn't make any sense,” she informs him flatly.

“Doesn't it? Haven't you noticed how Yezo tends to...escalate things?”

“I don't even know what that means!”

“Come on, she does it with everything! She starts out with a mildly stupid idea, and every time someone tells her no, she comes up with something a little bit stupider, until before you know it, we're riding unicycles in a circle wearing clown noses and rainbow wigs!”

“Wow, that must have been some training session!” Sharena giggles. "Did it happen while I was out sick?”

“Not literal clown noses and unicycles! But remember when she wanted to get a group photo of Boey, Boey, Boey, and Boey, and they all just sort of ignored her and went back to studying? Well, the next day, she was pestering them to sing her a song together, and the day after that, she tried to make them learn a dance, and by the end of the week she was pestering them to start a musical group.”

“Oh, right! The Backstreet Boeys! Hey, they're actually getting really good!

“And do you remember her weird team-building obsession last month? She started out encouraging everyone to set up social outings with people we don't know very well, and when no one did it, she tried to organize a picnic, then a fishing trip, then a scavenger hunt, then a pub crawl, and then she threw that Dress-As-Your-Favourite-Metaphor party and made attendance mandatory.”

“Well, I remember being disqualified because I accidentally dressed up as a simile,” Sharena pouts. Yezo can say whatever she wants, Cute as a Button was a fantastic costume. Then, thinking about the rest of the evening, she snickers. “Do _you_ remember when Yezo drank three bottles of wine, and kept telling people that you remind her of her cat because you give the best cuddles and your hair is fun to pet?”

“I remember,” he sighs, rubbing his eyes.

“Or when she decided that you needed little cupcakes painted on your face?”

“Hard to forget that, when they didn't wash off for three days.”

“Or when she tried to fist fight Mother and Father for the right to adopt you?”

“Good gods, Sharena, can you _please_ let me pretend that I still have a shred of dignity to speak of?” he wails, the words muffled by his hands.

“Sorry!” she chirps. “But come on, what's the worst that could happen?”

He slumps in despair.

“Why would you say that?!”

“You're being silly, Alfonse! If you don't talk to her, I will. And if I do it, you know she'll spend tomorrow squealing to everyone who will listen how _cute_ it is that you're so shy that you need your little sister to talk to girls for you.”

“That does sound exactly like her,” he grumbles, gathering up his bundle and trudging away. “Okay, fine. But if this backfires horribly, I'm blaming you.”

\-------------------------------------------------

Engrossed in her deeply intricate and complex work, the Legendary Summoner Yezo fails entirely to notice the large and distinctly lumpy shadow falling over the Candyland board that serves as a mock-battlefield.

“Crap, was the Hamburgler supposed to be Hector or Other Hector?” she mumbles, peering at the small plastic toy in her hand before settling it next to Ryoma McDonald and adjacent to the grinning bag of french fries that could of course be none other than Odin. “Eh, screw it, I'll just—oh, hey, bb!”

She smiles fondly, allowing herself a moment to fully enjoy how darned cute the Askran prince is, wrapped in his bundle of brightly coloured wool, hair sticking up from the static. Heck, even the completely manufactured expression of annoyance he's using to look like a manly man with no use for fuzzy blankets is adorable!

“Hello, Yezo. Do...” His eyes dart quickly over the Candyland board. “Do you have a moment? We can talk tomorrow, if you're busy.”

“Nah, it's cool. Just doing some strategy planning.”

“I...see,” he nods. “May I ask where the pig in the pink dress comes in?”

“That's Miss Piggy! I'm using her to represent Effie. Nothing personal, of course,” Yezo hastens to explain as his eyebrows shoot upwards. “Just the fondness for pink.”

“Ah. And the smiling block of cheese?”

Yezo levels a flat stare at Alfonse, who nods in sudden understanding.

“Arthur,” they say in unison.

“Oh, and look at these guys!” Yezo orders excitedly, gesturing to a cluster of toys including the aforementioned Miss Piggy and Hamburgler, joined by a McNugget in a fireman's hat and Yosemite Sam. “Effie, Hector, Draug, and Gwendolyn! It's Team Are-We-There-Yet!”

Her expectant grin falters as Alfonse merely frowns.

“Why are you calling them that?”

“W-well, you know,” Yezo shrugs. “'Because they take forever to get around.”

“They each wear at least their own body weight in armor, Yezo,” he points out patiently. “It's only natural.”

“Yeah, exactly! That's why it's funny!”

“But...why?”

As the joke sails once again over her adorable cupcake blanket burrito's head, she reaches for his hand and squeezes it fondly.

“It's so cute, how you have literally no sense of humour.”

“...Thanks? Mother always says that the fairies accidentally took it when they tried to steal me away as a baby and botched the job.”

“Aaaaaaaaaaah, that's adorable!” Yezo squeals. “Seriously, you're adorable, your sister's adorable, and now your mom's adorable? What is it with your family? Are you all like this, or did you and Sharena just get it from her?”

“I'm...not sure what you mean by that,” Alfonse admits.

“Don't worry about it.” Yezo waves dismissively, making a note to hit up the library for some books on the history of Askr's royal family, just to see if there's any precedent for her newly forming plan of somehow weaponizing the unbearable cuteness of its current prince and princess.

Not that she minds presiding over battle after bloody, desperate battle, but if she could somehow utilize the combined might of big sad dark blue and bright green eyes to guilt the Emblan army into dropping the conflict and just sort of going away, it might save a lot of time and brutal evisceration for everyone.

Caught up in a mental tally of all the Heroes skipping around that could potentially level mountains (or rather, guilt mountains into leveling themselves) just by pouting adorably at them, Yezo starts in surprise at the sound of a polite-yet-increasingly-impatient throat-clearing.

“Oh! You're still here,” she notes. “Right, you needed to talk. So, what's on your mind?

“Well...” With some difficulty, Alfonse pulls out a chair across the table and sits, shrugging out of his portable blanket fort and muttering something about the joys of a full range of movement. Absently, he picks up and begins fiddling with Mayor McCheese/Narcian. “I'm not entirely sure how to say this.”

Tenderly, Yezo reaches across the table for his hand and tenderly, tugs Mayor McNarcian free and sets the toy back where it's supposed to be.

“It's okay, my smol precious bundle of cuteness, you know you can talk to me about anything.”

“It's about these,” he begins, indicating the mountain of wool pooling on the floor around his chair. “Please don't think me ungrateful, Yezo, but I can't wear them anymore!”

“What?! But you love being a blanket burrito!” she protests. “Don't you?”

“No, not really! It's cumbersome, I look ridiculous--”

“I think you mispronounced _adorable_.”

“--and the height of summer is not the right time to shuffle around under eighty-seven pounds of wool!”

“Oh, come on, Al,” Yezo scoffs. “We're talking about sixty-four pounds of wool at the most.”

“That's still a lot!”

Yezo nods thoughtfully.

“You know, I thought it was a little weird that you were cold enough in this heat to keep wearing them, but I thought maybe you had, like, poor circulation, or undiagnosed hypothyroidism or something.” She droops a little. “I thought you liked them. I remember the first time I bundled you up, you looked so cozy and content!”

“Yezo, I had just been blasted through the surface of an iced over lake by that double of Reinhardt that keeps showing up everywhere and ranting about the bushes and trees being out to get him! Believe me, at that moment, I appreciated those blankets more than I have ever appreciated anything in my life. But then you just kept doing it, and you started pulling enormous vats of soup out of nowhere, and I didn't know how to ask you to stop.”

“Yeah, that's fair,” she sighs. “I just...I remember how sweet you were about it when I got super-drunk and cried all over you for two hours about missing my husband, and you've been so sad and quiet lately since we had to come back without your boyf after you almost accidentally killed him, and I wanted to return the favour, be a listening ear and a shoulder to cry on, but you never seemed to want to talk! Then I thought maybe you just weren't comfortable pouring out your heart and soul to someone you don't know that well, but Sharena says you're like that with everyone these days, so I had to find some other way to be your friend!”

“Of course you're my friend, Yezo! After everything you've done for us, I will always consider you a friend. It's just that--”

“There are good ways and bad ways to be someone's friend,” she finishes glumly. “I get it.”

“And you're not mad? Or hurt?”

“Of course not,” she scoffs. “I was trying to do something nice for _you_ , but I don't really know you that well since you're about as communicative as a potted plant when it comes to the realm of the personal, so I had to fall back on some of _my_ favourite things. And what kind of friend would I be if I got mad at you for not liking all the things I like?”

“So, being a bundle is how you feel better?”

“Oh, heck, yeah! Depending on what I'm hiding from like a pathetic miserable coward, I can stay in there for days. My current record is a week and a half, but then I had to go back to work, and my boss kept going on about things like _food safety_ , and _dress code_ , and _professionalism_ , and _you don't drape yourself in blankets while you're using a deli slicer, Yezo, Jesus fucking Christ_ , so I left them at home after that.”

Alfonse nods with the carefully polite expression that means he's understood a third of what she's just said at best.

“I see. Thank-you for being so understanding, Yezo.” His eyes flick to the game board. “I ought to leave you to it, but first...um, do you want me to help you bundle up?”

Yezo breaks into a huge grin.

“Aww, yeah, that would be great! I haven't been a burrito in ages!”

She leaps from her chair, and together, they wind several of the soft, colourful wool blankets around her.

“Thanks, bb!” she calls, settling back into her chair. “Ahh, that's some good blanket burrito.”

Seconds after that, she swiftly unravels and kicks the blankets aside.

“Wow, he was _not_ kidding about it being way too hot for this!”

\----------------------------------------------------------------------

As a small child, one of the first lessons Alfonse learned for himself was that things can always get worse.

In the years between then and now, he's spent enough time with Sharena and her relentless optimism that he doesn't necessarily always accept the worst possible outcome as a sure thing, but he still finds that hoping for the best comes with a high risk of disappointment.

As surprisingly painless as that much dreaded conversation with Yezo was, a part of him still can't quite believe that a woman known to cry over everything from sleep deprivation to a stubbed toe to a particularly pretty song wouldn't feel the least bit hurt (and vengeful) over being told that her thoughtful gestures were completely unwanted.

And so, when he goes about his duties the next day, it's with one eye anxiously scanning the heavens, waiting for the other shoe to drop.

But as the day wears on with no sign of a deluge of plummeting footwear, only the nose-boops and hair-nuzzles that have somehow become his benchmark of normalcy, he starts to think that maybe Sharena is onto something with the notion that some surprises are good surprises.

“Sharena!” he calls, breaking into a light jog when he sees a familiar blonde streak pelting across the courtyard.

At his shout, she stops and turns with a rather strained smile.

“Oh...hi, Alfonse. Is everything okay?”

“I just wanted to tell you, I talked to Yezo like you said.”

He intends to elaborate, to admit that she was right, that he ought to listen to her more often, that he appreciates having such a caring sister who will push him to take steps towards becoming a happier and more well adjusted person. But before he can take a full breath, she scowls.

“Seriously, Al? Are you actually going to say 'I told you so?'”

“Um, no?”

“I get it,” Sharena huffs as though he hasn't spoken. “I shouldn't have made you talk to Yezo!”

“But I was--”

“How was I supposed to know that she was _actually_ crazy?!”

“Sharena, I was just going to thank you, because it went better than I thought it would!” he finally manages to interject.

She stares, horrified.

“Hang on, you mean you actually _like_ what she did to your bedroom?”

A sick feeling of misgiving creeps over him.

“I know there's probably no answer to this that won't make me want to run screaming into the night,” he says slowly, “but what are you talking about?”

“Oh, Al,” she breathes, eyes warm with sympathy. “You haven't seen it yet, have you?”

“Seen what?”

“I...really don't think I can explain it,” she says with a grimace. “You kind of need to see it for yourself.”

“Well, _that's_ a terrible sign,” he notes as she grabs him by the sleeve and drags him back toward the castle.

\-------------------------------------------------

Though he spends the brief walk dreaming up scenario after horrifying scenario in the hopes that he'll be ready for whatever Yezo's actually done, it only takes a single glance for Alfonse to realize that nothing could have fully prepared him for this.

From wall to wall, covering every available item of furniture, spilling from the closet, peeking out from under the bed, dozens of tiny, fuzzy, silky-eared...

“Puppies,” he observes, stunned, back pressed tightly against the door.

“Puppies,” Sharena agrees with a resigned sigh.

“Hmm. I have to admit, I did not expect this.”

“You're taking this better than I thought you would.”

“Well,” he shrugs, “considering how bad it could have been, I feel like I've gotten off easy.”

“That one is eating your books,” Sharena announces, gesturing.

With a shouted profanity, Alfonse bolts across the room, scooping up the slightly damp and damaged books from the window seat with one arm and a fluffy black and tan pup with the other.

“No!” he tells the puppy sternly. “Books are not for eating! Books are for reading!”

The puppy stares back, pointed ears flicking quizzically.

“Sharena!” a reproachful voice cries from the door. “You were supposed to keep him away until after supper! It loses some of the impact if he sees it before it's finished!”

“I feel like this is about as much _impact_ as he can take,” Sharena says, stepping back quickly as Yezo lugs some sort of giant, lumpy pillow across the room.

Hurriedly, Alfonse sets the puppy down gently and carefully picks his way across the floor, which seems to be nearly seething with tiny dogs.

“Yezo,” he starts, and then falls silent, with absolutely no idea where to begin.

“Hiya, bb,” she greets with an enormous grin. “Do you love it?”

“It certainly is...something,” he admits.

“After we talked last night, I knew I had to figure out something nice to do for you that you'd actually like, but then I realized that I forgot to ask you what you're into. But I figured, everyone loves puppies, right?”

“That checks out,” Sharena agrees innocently, her eyes darting repeatedly to the puppies with a distinct expression of longing.

“Maybe so, but some of us prefer them in _moderation_ ,” he says, relenting and picking up a dark brown floppy-eared puppy pawing at his leg and crying pitifully.

“It was _supposed_ to be a surprise,” the summoner sighs, casting an annoyed look at Sharena, who simply shrugs.

He nods, sending Yezo a small smile that even to him feels incredibly forced.

“Well. Mission accomplished. So...what is _that_ for?”

Giving the huge oblong pillow a final thump, Yezo beams proudly.

“It's a puppy cuddle nest! I didn't know if you'd be comfortable with having a dog on your bed--”

“Which is why you filled my bed _room_ with...what, thirty-six of them?”

“Thirty-nine,” Yezo corrects easily. “So I thought it could double as a dog bed!”

“For thirty-nine dogs.”

Yezo frowns.

“Huh. That's a good point. We may need some more giant pillows. Hold on, I'll be right back.”

“Yezo, wait--!” He sighs as the door clicks shut behind her. “What in the hell are we going to do with all these dogs?”

Sharena gazes out over the wriggly mass of fur with an expression of deep consideration.

“My first instinct is saying cuddle-pile,” she finally announces, before taking a running leap at the enormous cushion. She stretches out and pats the considerable remaining space. “Come on, some puppy cuddles will make you feel better!”

Alfonse is about to retort angrily that if she loves puppy cuddles so much, she's welcome to take all of these dogs back to _her_ bedroom, and good luck to her in house-training thirty-nine dogs before they make it uninhabitable, when the door swings open.

“Wow, that is a _lot_ of dogs,” observes a chillingly familiar voice.

“Commander Anna!” he yelps. “Commander, I swear, this wasn't my idea! I had nothing to do with it. I only found out about it a short while ago, and--”

“Yeah, Alfonse, I figured,” the redhead says flatly, arms folded. “If you were going to hoard animals in these numbers, I'm pretty sure it would be cats.”

Outraged, he draws a breath to protest, and then shrugs.

“Most likely, yes.”

“And anyway,” she adds, nudging away a few of the more curious puppies clustering around her legs, “I've been watching Yezo go past carrying dogs all day. I think she thought she was being sneaky, hiding them under her robe, but there's only so subtle you can be with an armful of puppies.”

He shrugs again, conceding this point, and then freezes as her words sink in.

“Hold on, you _knew_ this was happening? And you didn't, I don't know, throw something at her? Or tell me so I could throw something at her?”

“Come on, Alfonse, lighten up!” Anna orders with a chuckle.

“Yeah, Alfonse, lighten up!” Sharena chimes in from the cuddle-pile. “Wait, what?”

“Anna,” he pleads around a choking disappointment with the one person he thought he could count on to be incandescently angry with this nonsense. “Are you seriously telling me that you don't see the problem with Yezo sneaking thirty-nine dogs into my room—wait a minute, how are you planning to make money from this?”

“I'm glad you asked,” she grins with a wink. “Now, obviously, we'll have to find a different room – having a steady stream of strange people wandering in and out of your bedroom at all hours of the day might raise a few eyebrows--”

“I am so very afraid of where this is going,” he groans.

“I'm talking about giving the public a way to enjoy rolling around in a pile of puppies, without the hassle of taking care of a pile of puppies.”

“Okay...”

“Imagine: Anna's Puppy-Cuddle Paradise, with all proceeds going to the Order of Heroes! Five orbs for twenty minutes in the puppy room, or stay for an hour at a bargain price of twenty!”

Frowning in concentration, Alfonse repeatedly adds five, five, and five in an effort to get more than twenty, coming up short each time.

“I think there might be something wrong with your math.”

“Well,” Anna shrugs, “as long as you don't do something stupid, like tell the customers that, we'll be fine. Okay! I'm going to go get started on some preparations. There's a lot to do. We'll need to find a big enough room that we can re-purpose quickly, assign a full-time puppy-minder, get some more of those giant pillow things...You two stay here and look after these little guys until I send someone for them, okay? And hey, maybe get started making some notes about signage and advertising.”

Before the siblings can do more than exchange a look of deep confusion, Anna is on her way out the door.

Utterly perplexed by every single aspect of this situation, Alfonse stares blankly at the door for a long moment before coming to a decision. After all, when you find your life spiraling uncontrollably into complete nonsense, the best thing to do is hold on tight and enjoy the ride.

“Okay, scoot over,” he orders, climbing onto the puppy-cuddle cushion next to Sharena, and gently lifting a few of the puppies into his lap. “Let's see if there's anything to these rumours about the curative power of puppy cuddles.”


End file.
